


Something Shakespearean

by ALittleGranny



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Humor, Mystery, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 04:29:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14927165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALittleGranny/pseuds/ALittleGranny
Summary: With the Institute destroyed, Deacon planned to move on to the next chapter in his life. A chapter of his life with a little more trust and a little less lying. One that involved the woman he was growing ever closer to. That was until one last remnant of the Institute threatened to destroy everything he had worked for.





	Something Shakespearean

A lock of white blonde hair caught the moonlight as Deacon paced between the church pews. Deacon eased his silenced pistol from his holster. Wooden splinters and scraps of paper crunched beneath his feet when he sidled between the pews. Curled into a ball, a boy pale blue eyes stared between boney fingers from under the bench. No older than twenty. 

“Hey, buddy.” Deacon set his pistol on the bench and crouched. 

Statue still, the kid stared past him. Eyes unfocused and unblinking. The once white jumpsuit, now caked in blood and dirt, wrinkled with the boy’s shallow breaths. A brown, wide-brimmed, hat rested atop his head. 

“You’re C0-13, right? I’m Deacon. I’m with the Railroad.” 

The synth stared. The kid could win a staring contest with a statue. His bloodshot eyes did not waver at the sound of footsteps on the floorboards above. 

“Did you find him?” His partner, the Professor, called and rushed to the edge of the balcony. Her springy, coiled, hair looked frizzier than usual. Maybe it was just the angle. Or maybe she somehow stressed herself out enough to stop primping. Given hours spent looking for a missing synth, he assumed the latter. 

“No, just talking to myself over here,” Deacon replied. “He’s not the chatty type.” 

Professor raked her fingers through her hair, smoothing it. “Thank Christ”, she breathed. Yep. Stress. With the synth found, the Professor could resume her obsessive hair care routine. 

“Thank my eagle eyes,” he said. “Kid’s like a chameleon.” 

The Professor scoffed. “Maybe if you didn’t wear sunglasses at night, he would have been easier to spot.” She sidled between him and the pew, her backside brushing against him when she passed. 

“Still saw him first,” he defended lamely. 

Instead of indulging him in childlike bickering, she rolled her eyes and told him focus. The Professor bent over and looked under the pew. She greeted the synth with a smile and a wave. When the synth did not respond, she swept aside some debris and got to her hands and knees. Her hair brushed the floor as she attempted face-to-face conversation. 

Certain her attention was on the synth, Deacon slid his glasses to the tip of his nose and glanced over the brim. Without the glasses, Deacon had to agree the synth was easier to spot. Not that he would admit that to the Professor. His eyes wandered to his partner and lingered on a bit of skin between her belt and the hem of her shirt. He pushed the glasses back onto his face and averted his gaze. 

Deacon gave them some space and took a seat at the end of the pew. He busied himself with cleaning his gun while he listened. 

Her attempts at conversation were about as successful as his own. She asked him several questions. What’s his name? Why didn’t he wait where he at the library? Why was he hiding? None of the questions earned a response. 

“He’s a real chatterbox.” Deacon brushed a bit of dirt from the barrel of his gun. “Let’s call him Polonius.” 

Professor lifted her head and pursed her lips. “We aren’t doing that.” 

“Why not? He’s got this ‘brevity is the soul of wit’ thing down pat.” 

She rolled her eyes and plucked a splinter of wood from her hair. “At least one man in this room does,” she muttered. With a huff, she sat back and pulled a hair tie from her wrist. Deacon let his eyes linger on her as she tied her hair back in a pretty pouf. With her hair no longer at risk of dusting the ground, she ducked under the pew again. 

“Will you walk with us to Goodneighbor? It’s a lot nicer than being under a bench.” 

“I thought I was the liar here,” Deacon quipped with a grin. 

The Professor did not acknowledge his comment. She settled onto her stomach and continued her attempt at conversation with the non-responsive synth. Maybe C0-13 had some faulty circuits. 

Discouraged by the lack of response from both the Professor and the synth, Deacon studied his pistol. Nothing better to do while the Professor worked. The pistol, one he carried for years, somehow seemed heavier than usual. Nothing appeared out of place. Tinker Tom was the last person to handle the gun other than himself. Deacon had passed it off to him to do repairs while Desdemona briefed him and the Professor on their assignment. Deacon turned the gun over in his hands and frowned. When he thought about it, he had not used the gun since Tinker Tom gave it back to him. Had no reason to. The assignment was quiet, despite the unexpected game of hide and seek with their package. When the synth wasn’t at the public library, Deacon figured there would be trouble. To his surprise, and momentary relief, there was none. Weighing the gun in his hand, he tried to determine if the extra weight was just his imagination or a ‘Tinker Tom Special’. 

“You see if Tom did something to my gun?” Deacon clicked open the clip and removed the bullets. Those looked normal. 

“I told you not to let him play with it,” Professor said. “You still owe me .44 rounds from last time. Those aren’t cheap.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Deacon dismissed the response with a flick of his wrist. Last time Tom messed with his gun, he increased the fire rate. Due to an encounter with a pack of mongrels, Deacon ran out of bullets before he and Professor got to their destination. Then he ran out of her bullets too and spent the rest of the mission scrounging for ammo and hiding behind the Professor. 

Deacon looked through the aiming module. That seemed normal. With the gun empty of bullets, he aimed at the pulpit and pulled the trigger. It clicked on empty as it should have. No little flag that said BANG! Nothing fun like that. A little disappointed, Deacon sighed and reloaded the gun. “Heads up. Or down. Actually, keep them down. Doing a test fire,” Deacon warned. 

“Really?” Professor nearly hit her head when she pushed off the floor. “Right now? Seriously?” 

“Tom did something to it… I think.” Deacon looked down the barrel towards the pulpit. “For all I know, Tom could have finally perfected his bullet to glitter conversion. Next firefight and poof! Super mutants blinded by glitter.” 

“Ugh.” Deacon did not have to look at her to visualize the eye roll that accompanied that disgusted sigh. Over the year he had known he Professor, she had mastered the art of calling him an idiot without saying a damn word. Not that he disagreed in the current circumstance. A rickety church held together by dust and radroach waste made a poor firing range. Oh well. It survived a nuclear explosion, it could survive a bullet. 

With his sights set on the pulpit, Deacon pulled the trigger. The gun kicked back like it was a rifle three times it’s size. A loud, metallic, groan, accompanied the bullet hole in the wood. Deacon furrowed his brow at the sound. The pipe organ towering behind his target hummed. A perfect circle punctured one of the pipes. 

“What the hell was that?” A faint but gruff voice interrupted before Deacon could figure out what happened. 

“Sounds like someone’s holed up in the church.” Another voice, also male, barked back. 

“Better be that shit with the hat.” 

C0-13 shuffled further under the bench. The Professor sat up and tilted he head in the direction of the voices. 

“Come on out, blondie. We’ll make it nice and quick,” one of the Raider’s taunted. The Professor’s head snapped towards the direction of the voice. 

Deacon stood slowly and caught sight of the two men as they passed a broken, stained-glass window. Raiders. One with a bat wrapped in barbed wire and the other with a pipe rifle. 

“Why don’t you show us that gun you got?” the raider with the pipe rifle taunted. 

“Think he knows how to use it?” 

“Hell no. If he did, idiot wouldn’t have fired.” 

Professor turned to Deacon with a restrained ‘I told you so’ smile. Deacon flipped her the bird and turned to C0-13. “Stay here,” he whispered. 

“Both of you,” Professor corrected, her voice just a low. “Don’t use your gun. Just watch him.” 

“Roger that.” Deacon returned the gun to its holster. 

With the pistol Deacon gifted to her on their first mission, Professor snuck out between the pews. Deacon took her place in front of C0-13. The synth shook with his hands clamped over his mouth. His eyes followed the sounds of footsteps outside the church. The sound of a gunshot and shattered glass made him flinch. He pulled the hat closer. “No, no, no, no, no,” he mumbled under his breath. “He’s here.” 

Despite the Professor’s direct orders, Deacon pulled out the gun again. It was better than nothing. Whoever C0-13 was, those raiders were after him. And Deacon refused to lose a synth without a good fight. 

He peered over the pews. The Professor crouched against the wall near the doorway, gun ready in her hands. Unless one of the raiders went through the window. Which would be stupid even for them. 

When the raider with the pipe rifle nudged open the door, the Professor fired two shots to his head. The only sound the raider made was when his body toppled to the floor. 

The other raider cursed and dropped his weapon. The wooden bat tumbled down the stone steps. In a rare display of raider intelligence, the man ran. Professor rushed to the door and fired another three shots toward the fleeing footsteps. 

Startled caws of crows cawed and then silence. 

She huffed and pocketed her pistol. “All clear,” she said. “We should get out of here. Before he comes back. How’s C0-13?” 

C0-13 slipped out from under the pew and settled on his knees. “I am okay,” he said. “Thank you. He wanted my hat.” 

Deacon blinked. It was a damn ugly hat. “Why?” 

C0-13 looked at him with a blank expression and pulled at thread on his jumpsuit. “It makes me me,” he said. “He can’t take me. Not like the other synths. They aren’t bad. He makes them bad. He makes them into him and not them.” 

Deacon glanced at the Professor, who looked about as confused as he felt. The kid was not great with words. Pronouns in particular. Who was this ‘he’ or ‘him’ C0-13 kept mentioning? Maybe C0-13 did not know either. 

The Professor pursed her lips and her brows drew together in thought. “Uhm.” She shifted her weight. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell us,” she said. 

C0-13 tilted his head in a way reminiscent of a confused puppy. “He is gone for now,” C0-13 said. “Far from here. Thank you.” 

A beat of silence as they waited for further clarification. When C0-13 said nothing, Deacon cleared his throat. “Well, uhh, Polonius— can I you Polonius?” The Professor rolled her eyes dramatically and the synth smiled at the nickname. “You still want to go to Goodneighbor, right? Do the new memories thing?” 

C0-13 bit his lip, snagging a bit of dead skin. He looked up, eyes focused on sliver of star speckled sky through the damaged roof. “Is Goodneighbor safe?” he asked. 

No. “Yes,” Deacon said. “A lot safer than here, at least.” 

“Our friend, Dr. Amari, is waiting to meet you,” the Professor added. “She’s a wonderful day woman. She can help you with getting new memories.” 

C0-13 picked at a thread on his jumpsuit. “Yes. I want to go. I don’t want to remember.” He pulled on the brim of his hat, as if trying to better secure it on his head. “He will be looking soon.” 

~ 

Leaving C0-13 with Dr. Amari proved to be a bit of a challenge. The synth said it wasn’t safe. He also said Dr. Amari would take his hat. After several minutes of promises and reassurances, C0-13 agreed to go with Dr. Amari. On the condition Dr. Amari would not touch his hat, of course. 

They said their goodbyes to C0-13. C0-13 wished them well before he followed Dr. Amari into the Memory Den. The synth was strange, stranger than most, but he was nice. With some help from Dr. Amari and the Railroad, the kid could live a normal life. He deserved that. All synths deserved that. Though it was always bittersweet to say goodbye to them, knowing the synths would never remember them. It was for the best. 

The Professor ran her hand through her hair and turned away from the Memory Den. “Amari will need a miracle to help that one,” she said. 

“Lucky for him, Amari is a miracle worker. I think she keeps a stash of miracles under her lab coat.” 

The Professor breathed a laugh. “I’m sure you’d love to find out what’s under her lab coat,” she teased with a playful push to his shoulder. 

“I just said that. Miracles. Now what’s under Carrington’s is the real mystery.” 

That earned Deacon a laugh. A real one. Professor sometimes laughed at his jokes just to be polite. A real laugh caused that pretty smile of hers to reach her eyes. Deacon felt his chest swell with an emotion he’d rather ignore but was finally accepting. 

“My bets are on sullen superiority and spite,” the Professor said. 

Deacon resisted the grin tugging at his lips. “I was going to go for a rabid mole rat with puppet strings.” 

“Like that movie with the rat who controls the chef?” 

“Oh god, there’s a movie like that? That sounds horrifying.” 

“It wasn’t! It was adorable. Shaun loved it.” 

“You let a child watch that movie? You’re a sick lady,” Deacon joked, which earned him another shove and a laugh. 

“What do you say to some drinks at the Third Rail?” The Professor still smiled as she changed the topic. “I can get us a room at the Rexford while you get a table?” 

Deacon wondered if he misheard or if she misspoke. ‘A room’? Singular. Deacon tended to let her handle their evening accommodations. Normally, she indicated they would be in separate rooms if possible. Sometimes it wasn’t, and they shared, which was fine. Deacon preferred sharing with the Professor. Not that he would let her know. “Yeah, get us a couple of rooms—” 

“I, well—” the Professor shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “We’ve shared the last couple of times. If you’re okay with it, I would like to save a couple of caps,” she said. 

Judging by the way she avoided looking at him directly, saving caps was only part of the reason. Deacon decided not to push it. “Sure. Not a problem. If I start sleep walking, make sure I don’t try to make a dive for the window.” 

“I think you should be more concerned about your sleep talking.” 

“I sleep talk?” 

She offered a coy little smirk. “All the time. You’ve spilled so many secrets in your sleep.” From her tone, Deacon could not tell if she was joking or being serious. 

“Damn. Then you know all about tiny deathclaw I keep at HQ— do I really talk in my sleep?” 

She laughed but did not answer him. “Go get us a table,” she said and started toward the Hotel Rexford. 

Deacon watched her for a moment, mesmerized by the bounce of her hair as his mind reeled with unanswered questions. Was it possible the Professor liked sharing a room with him? Was it for the same reasons? Did he really sleep talk? Did C0-13 know he wore a woman’s hat? 

The thoughts keep his mind occupied as he wandered towards the Third Rail. 


End file.
